PM Boris resists calls to sack top aide after new claims emerge

Intense pressure mounted on Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday after new details emerged of his chief adviser Dominic Cummings breaching lockdown norms, with ruling party MPs, opposition leaders and tens of thousands of Britons demanding his resignation.

Cummings, who has been a pivotal if controversial figure since the Vote Leave campaign spearheaded by Johnson before the 2016 EU referendum, is considered a driving force behind the prime minster in plans on Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps faced a tough time on Sunday television on BBC and Sky as he tried to defend Cummings, who travelled over 250 miles to Durham in end-March after he and his wife showed symptoms of the virus – breaching official advice to ‘stay home’.

One rule for the people and another for those in power, Labour leaders and other protested, as some cabinet ministers – including chancellor Rushi Sunak – defended Cummings’ actions. Several ruling Conservative MPs broke ranks on Sunday to call for his resignation.

A petition titled ‘Dominic Cummings must be sacked’ quickly gathered over 61,000 signatures.

MPs across the political spectrum said their email inboxes were full of messages from angry people that they have been following official advice and depriving themselves of meeting close family members, even when they were dying, but Cummings felt entitled to break the ‘instructions’.

Steve Baker, Conservative MP and a leading pro-Bexiteer, said: “Dominic Cummings must go before he does any more harm to the UK, the government, the prime minister, our institutions or the Conservative party”.

“Today’s newspapers are a disaster. Enormous political capital is being expended saving someone who has boasted of making decisions beyond his competence and who clearly broke at the very least the guidance which kept mums and dads at home, without childcare from their parents, and instead risked spreading the virus by travelling”.

“It is intolerable that Boris, Boris’s government and Boris’s programme should be harmed in this way”.

Bakers remarks were backed by several party MPs, such as Caroline Nokes, who tweeted: “There cannot be one rule for most of us and wriggle room for others. My inbox is rammed with very angry constituents and I do not blame them. They have made difficult sacrifices over the course of the last nine weeks”.

The prime minister’s spokesperson defended Cummings twice on Saturday, but Shapps denied new reports that Cummings travelled again to Durham after returning to London in mid-April, and was allegedly spotted in other places near Durham.

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